1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to an image-based payment medium for retail sales that employs images stored on mobile phones in place of traditional plastic gift cards or credit cards.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditional plastic gift cards are prevalent in the retail industry. The gift card industry is a relatively new one when compared to other payment mediums such as credit or debit cards. But gift cards are quickly becoming a gift of choice among consumers for many reasons: convenience of the card, the personal touch a gift card can preserve, and the ability of the recipient to make the actual gift selection from the retailer. Gift cards as a phenomenon have also accompanied other innovations such as gift registries for weddings, the ultimate effect of which is to avoid the situation in which a gift giver gives a gift that the user does not like and will likely return.
There is little to no differentiation in the processing of gift cards among various providers. In fact, differentiation is perhaps the key factor in which various gift card providers may compete, but are currently not able to do so. The gift card is typically processed via either a magnetic stripe reader or barcode scanner, though hand written accounting for small retailers is not unheard of. These technologies are relatively well developed and well entrenched in the retail sector. Most retailers now have either a barcode scanner of some sort or a magnetic card reader. These devices simply translate the encoded data into a data string that uniquely identifies the gift card and is sent off electronically to a processor to validate the balance of the card, which is reconciled at purchase. Third party providers of gift card services tend to give the retailer specifications on data transmission, for both liability and cost reasons. Gift cards as a result are very limited in functionality, unable to serve more than one purpose or handle several strings of data that may be linked to several different functions. This is simply a limit of the traditional magnetic stripe and laser barcode technology.
Retailers employing an image-based payment medium for gift, credit or debit cards, however, have several options available to them, including text message notifications of balances and advertisements, and the ability to apply more credit to the recipient's account remotely. Also, whereas givers of traditional gift cards must carry the cards until they deliver them to their intended users, an image-based payment medium is delivered directly to the user's mobile phone so the donor never has to worry about handing the gift card to the user. Customizable delivery options would allow for personalized e-cards to be delivered with the image-based payment medium and an exact time of deliver that may be months in advance. An image-based payment medium offers a level of convenience and customer interaction unrealized by plastic gift cards.